EQ help needed for recording

[richardgk]

I am recording myself play bass to some songs on my computer with a lexicon alpha recording gizmo. It comes with cubase LE4.

I am wondering what frequencies to remove from the original song so that my bass will be heard, while not diminishing the effect of drums and keyboards. What frequencies should I boost or cut on my bass guitar track?

My goal is to have my bass be loud enough to be obvious, so my playing will be showcased, without ruining the original song.

Thanks

 

[kalle74]

Which frequencies are least crowded? Do you have build-up at specific ranges?

 

[maxiegrant]

It depends on what the current timbre of the instrument is, and of all the other instruments.

My experience with recording is #1 if you want your recording to be easy to work with, make sure there's some level of compression on all the tracks, especially the instruments that have a wide dynamic range. This keeps you from trying to use EQ or other tricks to bring an otherwise perfect performance up enough to be heard where it matters.

After that, begin by removing the part of each instrument that seems to impact its tone the least, and using the resulting frequency space to hopefully highlight the other instruments. It's kind of like putting together a puzzle -- except that all the pieces are not necessarily guaranteed to fit the way you want them to.

You obviously don't want to turn the low frequencies down on a bass, or the high frequencies down on cymbals or vocalists or guitars.

Other than that, you kind of have to pick. Bass & bass drum should be clearly separate in the mix. I leave the super lows of the bass drum, dial them off for the bass, and often end up emphasizing the mids more. But my style of music works for that. A metal band might scoop the mids on the bass and emphasize them on the drums . . .

Use your ears and do a lot of reading, and do a lot of practice mixdowns.